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Last week thanks to the amazing being who is MeganI was lucky enough to be able to attend Lush Belfast’s first ever blogger event. Now unless you were born under a rock and don’t know who or what Lush is I am going to presume that we are all aware of Lush. Lush has been easily one of my favourite shops since I was a kid, I remember saving my pocket money to go in and get a couple of bath bombs and even now at 23 years old I love nothing more than treating myself to a Lush bath after a long day at work. So I was so incredibly excited to be able to go and find out more behind the brand.

#SQUADGOALS aka the Fab Lush Belfast staff. The staff on the night were amazing and talked us through all of the products and how to properly use each item. That’s one thing I have always loved about the in store experience from Lush the staff everywhere I have been are just so helpful and friendly.

Definitely my favourite part of the night was getting to actually make up our own batch of my all time favourite Lush product, Angels on bare skin cleanser. I have used it for years as I find it works brilliantly on my very sensitive skin. What I loved was just how few products were used to make the cleanser and you got to see exactly what goes into it, no nasty chemical rubbish the ingredients are all fresh!

We also got to be some of the first people to see the new Fathers day range which launched in store the next day! The smugglers soul face scrub is my highlight from the range, makes my skin feel incredible. We also got to see the Lava Lamp bath bomb launch, very citrus inspired smell which is perfect for the Spring time!

Another Lovely part of the night was getting to meet alot of new faces ( new to me but believe me they are all blogger pros!) I have to give an extra special shout-out to Sera from Style guide Blog who I have been chatting to online for years and haven’t met until now! You know when you just feel like you have always known someone well I feel like I have always known Sera and was so so happy to final get to meet her.

A HUGE thank you to the lovelies at Lush for being so generous and helpful on the night! I had so much fun playing in the shop after hours and getting an up-close and personal view of all the lovely products in store.

“The CrossEyes concept is built on honesty, dedication and smartdesign. Through honest and hardworking employees, and low and transparent prices, CrossEyes is able to create an environment where you receive the right guidancewhen looking for quality spectacles. CrossEyes has hundreds of different custom made frames, which ensures that everyone can find glasses suitable for both their look and personality. At CrossEyes, we do not hide the prices – we display them for everyone to see”

On Wednesday 23rd March I was invited to attend the official Press and blogger launch of a brand new Opticians called Crosseyes. I had seen a few weeks earlier the signage go up on the shop front and even before I was contacted I was very interested the simplistic signage made me immediately very curious about what was to come and I immediately hopped onto Google. One quick Google image search of the types of glasses on offer and I knew I would definitely want to check them out, then only about a week later I got the email and knew it was fate! they are located on the Ormeau Road in South Belfastbeside the fabulous Kaffeo which makes it very easy to locate the shop as it is only about 10 minutes from the city centre.

When I arrived I of course being such an early bird was the first one there and I got chatting to the lovely instore team. Paul the optician explained that he had always wanted to start his own opticians and when he discovered the brand he knew that they exactly matched the vision he had for what he wanted to create. What I was immediately struck by was how personal not only the event was but just how lovely the whole team where, I am sure any of my speccy friends out there can relate to the horror that can be getting eye tests but you immediately felt like they would take your own personal needs into consideration and we got chatting as if we were old friends.

Once I had talked to the whole team and had a couple of cheeky glasses of prosecco the fabulous Sarah guided me around the whole collection showing me the amazing choice of frames on offer. I literally was spoilt for choice. Anyone who has seen the typical cat eye frames I wear will know I prefer something statement but not giving too strong Dame Edna vibes so seeing such a wide variety from classic shapes to new and exciting takes on the classics was really exciting to me. Anyone who was at the event will know that I fell particularly in love with a pair that I had first spotted on the companies instagram ( see HERE) a few weeks ago and as soon as I saw them they were on my face within seconds.

They were from the Bamboo range and what I love most is the subtle details such as the lens being very rounded and the small gap left between the lens and the cat eye frame, the natural shading of the bamboo made it feel like the glasses would suit a huge variety of hair colours or eye colours. What struck me the most was how light the frames felt on. As I said before I love a good cat eye however both of my own pairs I have from ASOS can feel rather heavy if I am wearing them for a longer period of time.

Another favourite were this take on the classic aviator, what I don’t think is too clear in the photo is that the nose bridge area is slightly more detailed than the typical design which just added an extra little bit of interest to the frames.

One key element to the Cross eyes approach to everything is there standard pricing list which means unlike other opticians that include hidden costs everything is inclusive and what you see on the wall is what you pay:

Another great factor to note is that you can get every frame either made into glasses or you can also get them made into sunglasses plus they have a wide array of lens colours ranging from clear right through the rainbow as well as mirrored lens ( How 1990s!)

Once I had been shown around the range I decided to have a bit of play time and ended up trying on nearly all of the frames in the store and believe me there are alot to choose from! I teamed up with my Megan and Lucy ( linked below) and we collectively probably tried on every pair twice, we also ate about a million brownies and pesto bites as well as probably made Paul and the team wish they hadn’t bought party poppers!!

check out my instagram HERE for all the behind the scenes pics from the night.

I want to give a huge shout out and thank you to the whole Belfast team, they put on a really great night which ended with drinks in the lovely Brew Bot just up the road and a few games of connect 4 and frustration!

Catwalk season is upon us and as usual we are seeing what each of the designers has interpreted for the up and coming season. After taking a bit of wind down time after finishing my degree I am trying to get back into the swing of things in regards to keeping up with the new season trends and shapes, however it I have found with the last few seasons my interests are more drawn to what we are seeing on the street rather than the runway.

I was on Instagram a couple of months ago when I saw the news the my beloved Style.com was no more. For the entire time of my degree style.com was my biggest source for nearly all of the visual work I produced but there is now a new site Vogue Fashionwhich aims to work as the same concept site. I usually for each project look to the work from Tommy Tonfor my collections but today I have instead been viewing the work from Phil Oh.

I think my love of street style is that it takes the trends which are given to us by the designers but humanizes them. What I mean is that you can look at beautiful images from creative catwalk shows but you don’t see how it looks when someone dresses it into their own personal style, I love the mix and creation of new looks which sometimes don’t work and sometimes do.

The streets are still full of function vs style with trainers still being a wardrobe staple clashed against a more formal piece, seen here with this incredible oxblood number verses what I think are a pair of new balances. This is my favourite type of style when the wearer has fully integrated the catwalk to suite their own personal style.

All images used have been gathered from Tommy TonandPhil Oh over the last few months.

Image taken from her official instagram page you can find it HERE [then edited by me]

The 70s look is back in a massive way for autumn winter 2015 and I for one and totally in love with the look. Now I can put my love of this trend down to one person and one person alone, Miss Florence Welch is the style guru for all things 60s 70s and bohemian. Her look is so well put together but so effortless constantly that I can’t help but be inspired by every single outfit I see from her. I mean really I should be calling this post ways in which I am stealing Florence Welch’s style but anyways back to my point. The 1970s look was all over the catwalk and has exploded onto the high street in a big way this season with nearly every store including it in some shape or form with the A/W offerings.

I have had a look around some of the high-street plus-size retailers and put together some pieces which I think really encompass the trend, So starting with simply be who actually have a brilliant 70s edit page HERE on their website.

The coat is my stand out piece from their collection and I think really well priced at £65 however due to the nature of the weather in Northern Ireland i.e constant rain I don’t think I could possibly get the wear from it but layering it over any sort of outfit will just give that slightly more subtle nod to the 70s look, I can really see it working well over skinny jeans and a loose top. The bag and shoes are also both more statement pieces, I feel that if you are not 100% sure about rocking the 70s look head to toe then they are a perfect way to dip your toes into a trend to see if you can make it work with your own style.

A couple of my favorite pieces from New Look ( see the site HERE) include this amazing fringed waistcoat which comes in at just under £20 although they seem to be adding more pieces into their sale on a daily basis so keep an eye. I actually picked up something really similar to this in Primark last week for a night out I was having last weekend and I just loved how easy it was to throw on and it instantly changed what was just a plain black dress into a more 70s look. I also love this little suede skirt and I think alongside a light turtle neck jumper would make a great day time outfit.

If Florence says an all suede outfit is ok then I am totally all for it!

Evans Clothing ( find them HERE) also have a great selection of pieces, from tailored waistcoats to bell sleeves. The waistcoat pictured comes in a variety of on trend colours and prints as well as a staple black version all starting at £35, I recently picked up the berry colour for myself and already I have found a million ways to wear it. I think tailoring pieces can also work for the 70s look as they give a more night out feel to an outfit. The bootcut jeggings are a great update for Autumn is the are a great nod to the very popular flare without being overly flared if you are not sure about how the trend will work on you. I think the key point is that if you want to try the trend but are not sure whether or not it will work for you try it out using accessorys and shoes. You can pick up great pieces really inexpensively from the likes of Primark which is how I have worked the trends into my own wardrobe without investing too much money into pieces which probably wont be as on trend in Spring Summer.

ASOS curve is probably my favourite in terms of getting the trends right at the minute, just looking at the images of the gorgeous Gabby Gregg in the Curve campaign shoot you can totally tell just how inspired they were by the 70s trend. Full of suedes and knitted layers I definitely recommend you check out their site even to just inspire new outfit combinations.

So as I previously mentioned I have being try to incorporate the 70s look into my own wardrobe in the last few weeks as the weather has began to transition to cooler days and chilly nights. The outfit on the left is a new go to for me, the black dress is one I have had for about a year now from Evans which is probably my favourite LBD. The waistcoat is from Primark for £14, the necklace is also Primark at £5 and I think together they provide a great 70s update to any outfit for under £20. The Waistcoat on the right is also Evans clothing and I think that with this pussy-bow blouse ( also Evans but really old) they together become a great 1970s dressy look.

So I decided to keep things short and sweet today, I wanted to talk to you guys about my latest beauty obsession, natural collection. I am still remembering being about 14 and using my pocket money to buy natural collection eyeliners and eye shadows because at the time it was all I could afford. Fast forward several years and I cant remember exactly who but I watched a video where someone was praising natural collections range of brown toned lipsticks and not being one to want to invest big money into beauty trends I thought these were the perfect way to do it.

The four colours I have picked up are:

Heather- a very shimmery light brown which when applied is more subtle a brown hue than the other colours.

Biscuit- a your lips but better light browny nude pink shade

Cedar- a medium brown tone, great if you are a bit scared to go all out brown with your lip colour

Hazelnut- my personal favourite a very true orange tone brown shade which I love against my hair colour at the minute

Cedar on the lips

Overall I am really impressed with these lip colours for the bargain price of £1.99 each they are a great way to try brown lipsticks without having to pay alot of money incase you don’t like the look on you. They are not the most long lasting colours however I put one coat of Lipcote over the top and they then last at least 6 hours or more without any fade or change in colour. I would definitely recommend that if you are wanting to try a brown tone colour.

Now that I am officially finished my degree I am pretty much working full time. I left my old job at the end of March and started working for Evans Clothing which is pretty much my dream retail post. I get to work with customers on a more personal level now that I am becoming an in-store personal stylist which is really exciting. Now that I am pretty much working full time I am making more of an effort with how I dress, finishing a degree was a blur of leggings and oversized jumpers so now with the weather supposedly getting better and summer being around the corner ( although in Northern Ireland I dont even think we have had a proper Spring yet!) I am trying to dress a it more summery.

If you are on my Instagram, INSERT SHAMELESS PLUG HERE then you will know that these outfits are not technically one week in my wardrobe but they do represent my current go to looks. I am favouring dresses at the minute which is something I never ever though I would say but after discovering the smock dress shape I have been hooked. I am trying to make a promise to myself to shop my closet more than I shop the high-street because I have a tonne of clothes that never get to see the light of day which is so wasteful. Because I am working long days I find it really important that I am comfortable so I am still loving layering dresses with leggings.

Monday

This New Look Dress was a sale bargain that I picked up for a fiver a few weeks ago and it and quickly become my favourite wardrobe staple. It has a mesh panel at the bust and is cut beautifully and really flattering on my shape. The coat was a mega bargain £2 in Primark it is a mesh material and the shape is great. The boots again are a New Look sale bargain from last January, real leather for £6 ! Total outfit costing only £16 ( minus my undies!)

Tuesday

Tuesday is another Bargain day, I am a rather savvy shopper and can usually find alot of bargains when I go shopping again this Neoprene Trench was £2 in Primark, the dress is very old New Look sale and I think it cost me about £6 or £7. The shoes are new season Evans and they are called the Fern sandal, they are slightly plat-formed and have a brown strap and a black strap making them great for going with pretty much any outfit. and despite the picture I am not quite at the point of total leg exposure just yet!

Wednesday

A more casual outfit typical of what I wear on my days off, the amazing sporty bomber jacket was a total bargain at £7.50 from one of my favourite Vintage Shops, The Rusty Zip which was rumoured to be closing but luckily is staying open. The jeggings and black shirt are both New Look, can you spot a trend in my shopping habits 🙂 The trainers are the Woven Roshe Runs from Nike aka my comfy unicorn shoes, I also have them in grey and literally live in them.

Thursday

One of my braver looks is my matching two piece from Evans last year, this outfit featured heavily in their spring summer 14 campaign and I decided it was going to be my brave girl piece. I am wearing it for the purposes of travelling to work in my Grey Roshe Runs but in work I wore it with my chunky white flatform sandals, I feel like this look needs strong slightly higher shoe to take it out of pyjama chic territory.

Friday

One of my all time favourite wardrobe staples is this monochrome checked smock dress from the Evans sale last year, it is the right shape for my body and I love the vintage vibes it gives when its mixed with my new ASOS specs. The TUK creepers give it a more grungey edge which we all know it my favourite style.

Saturday

no your eyes are not playing tricks with you I loved the smock dress so much I bought both colour options. Please tell me I am not the only one who does this I think about 40% of my wardrobe is duplicates in different colours, I find that if I like one style I will buy all the options I can find. The amazing jelly wedges are a recent Primark Pick up and I am totally obsessed with them, they are high and comfortable and I am trying to base my graduation outfit around them

Sunday

Another wardrobe favourite of mine is this mega oversized ASOS curve cold shoulder smock number, I picked it up on ebay for about £4 all in. I though it was actually 3 sizes smaller when I bought it, teaches me for not wearing my specs, but I instantly fell in love with its oversized ness when it arrived. Just styled very simply with a mesh grey top, just to add sleeves, fishnet socks and my New balance trainers.

I hope you guys like this type of post I am hoping to do it more regularly as I try to take my outfit pic at least a couple of times a week weather permitting

It was festive fashion fever as bloggers and media gathered to celebrate Christmas with DV8 Fashion. Proving a very successful evening, guests were welcomed with a fantastic drinks reception, courtesy of Lambrini, before exploring the fabulous collections DV8 have on offer this festive season. We were given free run of the shop with the lovely staff giving us any product information that we required. Of course being a magpie I went straight towards the sequins, there was a rail of items which where the buyers top picks. I loved the mix of party wear and everyday pieces that where on display. I will completely admit that I was totally unaware of just how many amazing brands that DV8 carry, everything from Irregular Choice to Levis with all styles catered for.

Once we had a few glasses of Lambrini and in my case one to many brownie bites in our system they told us about the styling competition they wanted to hold in store. Our brief was to create an outfit either mens’ or women’s and use products from around the store to create our looks. I immediately knew that I wanted to create a look which served a multitude of events. With my own work Christmas do being on Saturday night ( outfit post to follow) I wanted to keep that in mind because tis the season and most people will be heading to some sort of Christmas dinner event over the next few weeks. I also wanted an outfit which could also do a girls night out or a casual lunch date, After looking around the store I was immediately drawn to an incredible skirt which was worn by one of the lovely DV8 girls. It is a burgundy faux leather coated midi skirt ( alot of words right!) its very hard to describe and no picture will do it justice but just the colour and the shape is so perfect for the season and a complete steal at only £26 pounds!

So altogether this was what I came up with:

The inspiration for my is a grungy London cool vibes, As soon as I saw the skirt that started everything off for me. Of course I looked to Cara Delevinge as I could totally see her rocking this kind of outfit. I totally am still loving the 90s revival trend hence the inclusion of the bowler hat as a quirky fun detail. I found some images on-line and the fashion student in me was very excited to put together a quick mood board to show you guys my idea.

You can hopefully see the idea of the shape of the skirt but I promise in real life it is even more beautiful! I also was immediately drawn to and fell in love with this incredible sherling faux leather jacket. An investment piece at £60 but would be a great piece for all year round ( If you live in Northern Ireland were summer is about ten degrees warmer than winter)

Because the skirt is such a statement piece I wanted to keep the top half of the outfit really simple and found this lovely lace hem camisole that for the purpose of the image I tried to make it short and slightly cropped so the lace was a lovely break between the black and the skirt.

To go with the Christmas party vibes I added two statement necklaces slightly layered in gold and black tones to fit in with the rest of the look.

The shoes for me just top it all off. I was thinking party time completely with these shoes but I also would love to see the outfit with low top Dr Martens or mary janes courts if you are going to wear this look on a lunch date. To finish the look I topped it off with a quirky bowler and cute structured mini bag which was a Huge trend this season and perfect for the party night out essentials.

Back to the event itself I have to say a MASSIVE thank you to the amazing DV8 team for holding such a lovely event night and giving us a very kind giftcard at the end ( which BTW was spent on the night on a Christmas pressie for a family member!) I was attending the event with my classmate, friend and fellow blogger Emma from KookyMissMatchthis was her first event and I think the DV8 team definately set the bar really high for her!

I hope you guys are getting just as excited as I am about Christmas, I am starting to count down the days!

Like this:

So the final countdown is on and we are T minus 4 weeks until Christmas, I myself have only really started getting into the spirit this week after hearing the Salvation Army play in Victoria Square. I spent Saturday morning battling through the crowds to begin my Christmas shopping which I was pretty successful at. When I got home on Saturday after a crazy shift at work and finishing my shopping I was able to finally sit down and unwrap my Christmas present from the lovely people over at Argento.

I have always been a jewellery person, its just one of those things that I feel always makes the perfect present, you don’t have to always spend a complete fortune to find the perfect gift for a family member or friend. When the team at Argento asked me did I want to pick something I jumped at the chance to be able to show you guys what I felt was a great pick for a Christmas gift.

I decided to pick this beautiful sterling silver and turquoise ring. (link is to necklace ring isnt currently online) What I love most about this ring is that it is a statement piece whilst not being to much for everyday wear. Another great thing about this ring is that it is adjustable, I myself don’t have the skinniest of fingers and it is great to have the option wear it on whatever finger I want. I also think it would be a great layering piece to wear with all kinds of jewellery.

I also loved having a good flick through the magazine, I am sure you guys remember that I was lucky enough to help out on the campaign shoot a couple of months back and it was lovely to be able to see the finished product!

I hope you guys liked this little post if you guys want more Christmas gift ideas comment below

Back in around 2010 whilist going through a couple of fashion blogs, one of my favourite past-times, I stumbled across a closet interview from Stylelikeu. From that moment on I was completely hooked, I have probably watched every video or at least 99% of their videos by this point. I don’t think I could completely put into words what I gain from the videos but over the years I have primarily gained a sense of self-respect and self-love. The ethos of stylelikeu is the exploration of self and a move away from just accepting what society shows us e.g. Photoshop mass marketed churned out imagery. (SEE THEIR MISSION HERE)

Elisa and Lily are a mother daughter duo who set up stylelikeu in 2009 and have been championing self acceptance ever since. What really drew my to their work was the creation of the what’s underneath project. ( SEE MYLAS STORY HERE) it is a project to really get to the depths of what makes a person’s personal style and showing that it isn’t clothes that make a person rather the way in which they have developed throughout their lives that is the key.

One of the reasons that I chose Elisa and Lily as this weeks WCW ( women crush Wednesday) is that today saw the launch of their kickstarter project to raise funding to take the what’s underneath project globally and create an entire documentary about the movement. About 3 weeks ago I received an email from the SLU team asking if I wanted my testimonial be a part of the project, flashback about 3 months I emailed the SLU team just to express how much they have done for me without even realising it. I jumped at the chance to just to used in the wider context of the concept because I so passionately agree with their ethos. If you watch the video below I appear at about 4 minutes in!

What I hope others would learn from this website is that you dont have to conform to be beautiful, quoting one of my favourite closet confidential” Let your freak flag fly” we are all beautiful, we all have a purpose/ reason of existence and it is only through accepting ourselves that we can view the world as it is meant to be viewed.

I hope you guys like this quick post and I would seriously encourage you to head on over to their page and just watch a couple of the videos, I guarantee you will not regret it.

I am sure I have mentioned before that throughout my degree I have made a conscious effort to gain as much experience as possible in various areas of the fashion industry. As you would I have seen a few posts ago I have been working alot at Belfast Fashion week over the past eight seasons and through this I have made several contacts one of which is renowned local stylist Eve Brannon about a month or so ago now I assisted on an all day shoot for the Argento campaign images for autumn winter 14. The shoot was shot by the amazing Khara Pringle in her Belfast based studio. The concept was that we would use 2 different backdrops and shoot a very monochromatic palette so that the jewellery was the focal point of the shoot. I have waited until the shots have begun to appear in-store so that I don’t post any spoilers. This was the first shoot I had done which was an all day affair, I have had opportunities to do this before but I haven’t been able to stay due to other commitments.

The first part of any shoot is set up of all the different departments from the photographic team to hair and make-up. This is probably the lengthy and some what boring part of any shoot but it is so so important for the success of the rest of the shoot that you take time at this stage to make sure everything is right.

Then it is time for the hair and make-up team to work their magic on the model. They will usually have been given a rough brief of what the company that have ordered the shoot want from the look. The will have inspirational images to reference throughout the day and will be on shoot all day for touch ups and changes to the looks. They will work along side the photographer to ensure that the look transfers exactly in the photograph, for example an up-style might look brilliant in person but look rubbish in a photograph.

At this point my usual task is prepping the looks, helping organise them by retailer or theme, ensuring that we have all the items we are supposed to and if any items need steamed or adjusted ( pinned up in length for example)

The photographer at this point will do some test shots to make sure the lighting is working in the image and make any necessary adjustments.

One important tool used during the day is the laptop viewer, this previews each image as it is taken and allows the photographer to ensure all the details of the image are in focus.

The model in question was the beautiful Sif from Models One she had flown over especially for the shoot!

The rest of the day is then a mix of outfit and jewellery changes and of course a lunch break!

I hope you guys like this sort of post, helping with shoots is probably one of my favourite things to do I love any and all expierence I can gain and I am blessed to have built a great relationship with local stylists who allow my to assist on various projects. If you guys want any more info about how to get to work with local stylists or any info about any type of fashion voluntary experience drop me a wee email or tweet me @gingersnapsvtge